Joanna pinched the bridge of her nose, murmuring more notes of worry. Her mother was still going to the hospital regularly, though now she went to a hospital in Maryland. It had been a surprise when Catherine moved to Maryland six months ago, not long after Joanna’s wedding. Joanna’s dad had left promptly after the divorce, relocating to Maine, but Catherine had continued on in the little house on the outskirts of the Main Line, though Joanna had no idea how she kept up with mortgage payments. Joanna reckoned the only way she’d ever leave was if she somehow miraculously managed to find a suitable property in the Main Line proper, but when a great-aunt had died and left her a house in Maryland, Catherine had announced rather matter-of-factly that she was going to take occupancy. Joanna had helped Catherine move in and had visited almost monthly since then to accompany Catherine to her bigger medical procedures. The house wasn’t very remarkable, a brick ranch with a carport, an unused, aboveground swimming pool out back, and a foul-smelling mix between a stream and a swamp beyond that.
In moving there, however, Catherine had acquired a new doctor, Phinneas Treacher, who eagerly supported every crazy self-diagnosis she’d dreamed up, ordering Catherine test after test, plying her with medication after medication. During the past six months, Catherine had had screenings for lupus, fibromyalgia, and restless leg syndrome. This winter she was certain she had mesothelioma—“It’s from asbestos,” she whispered, “and we had asbestos siding on our house when I was a kid. The lawyer on TV said that sometimes you don’t even know you have it.” She’d also undergone countless tests for colon, lung, ovarian, cervical, pancreatic, and throat cancers, though they were all benign, and she took meds for type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, early-onset Alzheimer’s, and chronic pain. It was unclear whether she really suffered from any of those things, though Joanna doubted it. She was too cowardly to ask her mom why she was still orchestrating all these trips to the ER. Maybe Catherine was so used to having Munchausen’s syndrome that it was now routine, in the same way some people got up every morning and went jogging. The closest Joanna ever got to broaching the subject was when she suggested Catherine might seek a second opinion, but Catherine said that was out of the question. Treacher was the best. By whose standards, Joanna wasn’t sure.
“When’s the biopsy?” Joanna asked now.
“Tuesday.”
“Well, I can be there Monday night.”
“Oh honey! Are you sure?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“You’re not busy?”
“I can manage.”
“Charles won’t mind?”
“He’ll understand.”
Her mother let out a sigh. “That’s wonderful! And perhaps you can come to the sail club with me after.”
“The sail club?” Joanna repeated, wincing. Leave it to her mother. She pictured men in seersucker suits, with thin, foreign paramours on their arms. She pictured yachts in the marina with names like My Marilyn and Fantasia II.
Then switching gears, her mother asked her how she was doing. Joanna stood up straighter. “Fine!” she chirped. “Great!” She smoothed down her hair. “I’m at the market right now, looking for something to make for dinner. We have the greatest grocery store near us. Everything is gourmet.”
“Well, that’s good,” Catherine said slowly, as if yet again she didn’t quite believe her daughter. Then again, maybe she shouldn’t. Not that Joanna could get into it with her mother. She couldn’t say, Charles didn’t respond the right way when I freaked out about my bitchy neighbors. Charles and Sylvie don’t include me in their family discussions. Charles brought up an old girlfriend in a conversation I wasn’t supposed to hear. It sounded petty and maybe even insane. If she did say anything, anything at all, Catherine would just repeat what she said at her wedding: Don’t screw it up. Don’t you dare.
“Have you heard anything else about Scott?” Catherine asked.
Joanna said no, he was meeting with a group of teachers next week to talk about the situation. Just to ask him about the wrestling team in general.
“Oh dear,” Catherine sighed.
“I thought you said you didn’t think Scott had anything to do with it,” Joanna inquired, turning down the frozen-food aisle.
“I don’t. But I don’t doubt those boys were doing something. There was this special on CNN recently about how this group of girls banded together and tormented another girl on—what’s that site? Friendbook?”
“Facebook.”
“That’s right,” Catherine said. “Well, that poor girl they were picking on killed herself, can you believe it? Just like this boy at Scott’s school! And I saw this crime program the other day where a boy was sent to prison because his interrogators wore him down until he was so confused he admitted to something he didn’t do.”
Joanna stopped in front of a freezer containing organic pancakes and waffles. “Well, let’s hope that doesn’t happen.”
After she hung up, Joanna stared at the little screen of her phone, feeling the same emptiness and despair that overwhelmed her whenever she and Catherine got off the phone. And she felt as if she’d voiced her silly frustrations with Charles out loud.
She dialed Charles’s office to tell him she was going to Maryland again, but before she could complete the call, she heard someone calling her name. When she looked up, Scott was standing at the end of the aisle, his hands in his jeans pockets.
Joanna dropped her phone into her bag, her heart thumping. “H–hi,” she stammered. Had he heard her talking about him to her mother? What had she just said?
“I thought that was you,” he said, strutting down the aisle. A red grocery basket was hooked in the bend of his elbow.
“What are you doing here?” she blurted out.
Scott smirked and gestured to his basket.